Subject: Strange bug Geographic location of the bug: Louisiana Date: 04/19/2018 Time: 09:27 AM EDT Your letter to the bugman: Ordered crawfish and this was inside with them How you want your letter signed: Just wondering

Cocklebur

This is not an insect. This is a seed pod commonly called a Cocklebur.

Subject: Several Mistery Stashes of what looks like brown seeds Geographic location of the bug: Windham, New York Date: 12/15/2017 Time: 10:07 PM EDT Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read/look into our issue. My wife and I recently acquired a vacation home on the Catskills in Windham, New York. We have discovered in a few locations very small stashes of what looks to me like seeds of some kind, but I am no longer sure what we are finding. It is always inside a bed, or folded towels, or folded blankets or laundry. We do know there are mice in this area, but from what I understand, they wouldn’t be just seeds but no droppings. We have setup mouse traps and will continue to setup more, but again we only find seeds and no droppings. Not around the house or along the walls or any if that. There is snow on the ground outside, so my gut tells me it may be a squirrel or chipmunk, but haven’t heard any noises nor have we found any acorns. I am submitting a couple pictures to try to help solve the mistery. How you want your letter signed: George & Elena

Seeds

Dear George & Elena, Our best bet on this is that a rodent is stashing seeds inside your home as a winter meal. You wouldn’t necessarily find droppings near the food stash. We will be postdating your submission to go live to our site while our editorial staff is away for the holidays.

Subject: BeetleCaterpillar Geographic location of the bug: Joplin Missouri Date: 11/17/2017 Time: 07:36 PM EDT Found in a friends kitchen. She was poked by it and now has a swollen finger. Which I believe is common for pokes. How you want your letter signed: Heather

Cocklebur

Dear Heather, This is not an insect. It is the seed pod of a plant and it is commonly called a Cocklebur. Cockleburs get embedded in pet hair and clothing, and that is how the plant disperses its seed far from the mature plant. You can view this image that we located on the University of Minnesota Extension site. For some inexplicable reason, you may purchase 100 cockleburs on Etsy for a mere $5.00.

Subject: Do you know what these guys are Geographic location of the bug: Ontario canada Date: 10/04/2017 Time: 10:12 AM EDT Hoping you can tell me what these guys are How you want your letter signed: Val

Subject: Please help… Location: Pillow case and bed in RI January 6, 2017 10:05 am Hi, I just went into our guest room..(seldom used) and found these little black beadlike things all over the bed and discovered that they came from deep inside the pillow case!! There is hundreds of them…really hard but you can smash them…kind of white inside, or cream colored? The bed was slept in last night so it was unmade…I discovered these things all in the sheets but definitely the source was the pillow case…OMG! We live in Rhode Island in an old colonial style home, but I had the Pest guy over recently because we thought we heard a squirrel or something int he house but he found no evidence….what is this? Can you please help? Thank you in advance… Margaret Scully Signature: Little black things

Rodent Stash: Pokeweed Seeds

Dear Margaret, We have several postings in our archive that are similar, and while we have always suspected that this is the result of a rodent, like a mouse, stashing away seeds indoors, we eventually identified the actual seeds as Pokeweed Seeds. Our suspicion is that a rodent was squirrelling away seeds in anticipation of a harsh winter.

Rodent Stash: Pokeweed Seeds

I have contacted the pest control guy and he is coming Monday…. Thank you so much for the identification, I am indeed consoled… and happy that it wasn’t aliens. Have a wonderful New Year, Margaret

Subject: HELP!!! Location: Canton, OH February 24, 2016 11:59 am I have now found 2 piles of these mysterious seeds in various piles of clothing. I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly what it is and how they appeared. They’re mostly flat, semi-shiny, light to medium brown, and slightly pointed at one end. I’ve google searched to my whits end but absolutely nothing looks like these….flax seed-looking…droppings? I have NO idea but a few days after I found this pile, the entire pile was gone. GONE. As in disappeared. I’m not kidding!! Help! Signature: Scared and Alone In Home

Rodent’s Seed Stash

Dear Scared and Alone in Home, Though we cannot tell you what kind of seeds you found, we are very confident that they were put there by a rodent. Mice will frequently gather seeds and provision them indoors where conditions are comfortable, but where food is scarce. We have several postings of Poke Seeds found indoors, but your seeds are different.